SEE INSIDEVoices Fall-Winter 2009: Click on the cover for the Table of Contents. Read “From Wild Man to Monster: The Historical Evolution of Bigfoot in New York State” by Robert E. Bartholomew and Brian Regal here.JOIN the New York Folklore Society today to receive Voices.

When the first European settlers
entered what is now New York
State and its environs, they brought with
them not only their material culture, but also
an array of beliefs in mythical beings. Such
creatures had been part of the European
psyche for centuries. A central character in
this pantheon was the “wild man” thought
to inhabit the darker parts of the European
countryside. Also known as the woodwose,wooser, or “wild man of the woods,” it
was conspicuous in folklore between the
thirteenth and fifteenth centuries and holds a
prominent place in later medieval European
artwork and literature. A wild man’s image
even appears in many coats-of-arms and as
a herald figure in book illustrations. During
the later Middle Ages, “wild people” were
thought to be ordinary humans, such as
hermits and eccentrics: the socially marginal
and mentally deranged, who had turned to
life in the wilderness and began to regress,
growing a thick coat of hair and foraging
for food like a wild animal. The character of
the wild man did not remain a feral human.
The image evolved slowly over time into a
more malevolent and less human form. By
reviewing sightings of man-like monsters in
nineteenth-century and contemporary New
York, this transformation can be traced.

Not surprisingly, the early pioneers of
what is now New York State reported their
own wild men. Some of these accounts
undoubtedly depict hermits or deranged
individuals whose dishevelled and unkempt
appearance led to the conclusion that
they were degenerates regressed to a feral
state after living in the wild. The first New
World account of a wild man in the region
occurred in 1818 near Ellisburg, close to
the Canadian border, when a “gentleman
of unquestionable veracity” reported
seeing a man dashing through the woods.
It was covered in hair and bent forward
as it moved. A massive search ensued,
involving hundreds of residents, but to no
avail (Exeter Watchman 1818). Two decades
later, in August 1838, a boy told his father
of encountering a hairy boy in the town
of Silver Lake, Pennsylvania, on the New
York border:

The boy was sent to work in the
backwoods near the New York State
line. He took with him a gun, and was
told by his father to shoot anything
he might see, except persons or
cattle. After working for a while, he
heard some person, a little brother he
supposed, coming toward him whistling
quite merrily. It came within a few rods
of him and stopped. He said it looked
like a human being, covered with black
hair, about the size of his brother, who
was six or seven years old. His gun was
some little distance off, and he was
very much frightened. He, however,
got his gun and shot at the animal, but
trembled so that he could not hold it
still. (Dorchester Aurora 1838)

During the summer of 1869, a wild
man was spotted by at least one hundred
residents in the vicinity of Woodhill and
Troupsville in Steuben County. It made
shrieking sounds as it raced through the
countryside. An eyewitness said it moved
“with a springing, jerking hitch in his gait
[that] gave him more the appearance of a
wild animal than a human being.” One man
got a close-up view: “The long, matted hair;
the thick, black, uncombed beard; the wild,
glaring, bloodshot eyeballs, which seemed
bursting from their sockets; the swage,
haggard, unearthly countenance; the wild,
beastly appearance of this thing, whether
man or animal, has haunted me” (Evening
Gazette 1869). Later that year, a wild man
was observed eating minnows near Sucker
Brook, one mile south of Ogdensburg
along the Canadian border. While human in
appearance, its observers said its “arms and
legs were covered in long hair” (Plattsburgh
Sentinel 1869).

In March 1883, a wild man was spotted
in the northeastern portion of New York at
Port Henry on Lake Champlain. Witnesses
said the hair on the creature was so thick that
it resembled an overcoat (Plattsburgh Sentinel
1883). Between August and November
1883, the tiny community of Maine in
western Broome County, was the site of a
spate of wild man sightings. The creature
was described as “ow in stature, covered
with hair, and running while bent close to
the ground.” It was reported to have made
frightening shrieks and piercing cries (Free
Press 1883).

These nineteenth-century accounts
depict a remarkably similar form: human
in appearance, with animal behaviour and
physical characteristics. Typically hunched
over as it ran through the wilderness uttering
shrieks, cries, and whistles, it was covered
with an extraordinary amount of hair and
occasionally possessed a beard. Near the
turn of the twentieth century, sightings
of wild men began to dramatically shift
to descriptions of ape- or monkey-like
creatures that often possessed superhuman
strength. On the night of July 26, 1895,
in the Delaware County resort town of
Margaretville, Peter Thomas was driving a team of horses on a lone road when
a “wild-eyed man or ape” stood in the
road ahead. Thomas said the creature had
“long and hairy arms” and was “uttering
a raucous, inarticulate cry.” He said the
creature twisted the neck of one of his
horses before dragging it into the darkness.
The creature was “seven feet high, of human
shape, covered with hair.” The next day, local
farmer John Cook said he shot “a ferocious
ape-like being,” before it grabbed him and
threw him to the ground. The wild man
stood “about seven feet tall, entirely nude,
covered with black hair, with a long beard
and with teeth which project from its mouth
like fangs” (Newburg Daily Express 1895; New
York Daily Herald 1895).

A wild man resembling a gorilla was
spotted several times in April and May
1899 in the small village of Johnsonburg
in Wyoming County in western New York.
Missing chickens and sheep were linked
to the creature’s appearance. When some
women strolling through the woods saw the
creature, they said it “ran swiftly up a huge
tree and was lost sight of” (Oswego Daily
Times 1899). At about the same time, hunters
were scouring the woods for a wild man in
the town of Dresden, in the Finger Lakes
region of central New York. One witness
who reportedly bumped into it in the bushes
said it resembled a “gorilla, being covered
with a dark sort of hair or skin,” yet he
also said it was wearing a red shirt (Rochester
Democrat and Chronicle 1899).

During the early twentieth century,
sightings of ape-like creatures in the Long
Island countryside and the suburbs of New
York City became more common. While the
escaped zoo animal or pet hypothesis was
invoked, no escapes were ever confirmed,
and no creature was ever captured or shot
(New York Herald 1909; New York Herald
Tribune 1934). Since the middle of the
twentieth century, reports of large, hairy
monsters have dominated the Bigfoot
landscape. Under a full moon, around
11:00 p.m. on September 24, 1980, seventy-year-
old Kinderhook grandmother Martha
Hallenbeck and several relatives reported
encountering a large hulking creature
outside Martha’s rural home. Capital District
film critic and radio personality Bruce
Hallenbeck later wrote a letter detailing
this incident involving his grandmother to
Albany Times-Union newspaper columnist
Barney Fowler. The letter stated in part: “She
was terrified; it screamed, moaned, made
guttural noises, and finally my nephew got
his shotgun and fired into the air. It moved
away, walking on TWO legs, such as a human
would do.” When Fowler published the
letter, it triggered a deluge of encounters
among area residents.

There have been so many sightings in
the Kinderhook area since the late 1970s
that locals have dubbed it the “Kinderhook
Creature.” One incident reportedly took
place on a night in November 1980, when
Barry Knights and Russell Zbierski were
walking on a desolate road near Cushing’s
Hill when they noticed noises coming from
both sides of the road. In a 1980 interview
with Bruce Hallenbeck, the pair said that
five huge, hairy creatures with cone-shaped
heads and no necks suddenly converged on
the road ahead. The men ran in the opposite
direction. At about the same time, a woman
just down the road said she saw a huge hairy
creature that walked on two legs remove
food from trash cans by her garage. She
told Knights and Zbierski that her dog was
so frightened that it began to spin in circles
and wet itself.

During February 1982, two Whitehall
police officers were on routine patrol,
driving along a remote stretch of Route 22
near East Bay at 4:30 a.m., when they were
startled by a huge hairy humanoid standing
seven-and-a-half to eight feet tall. In a 1982
interview with Paul Bartholomew, officer
Dan Gordon said he looked on in disbelief
as the creature crossed the road in a flash.
It then climbed up a steep embankment and
out of sight. Shaken, Gordon pulled out his
service revolver and walked around, but it
had disappeared into the night. Gordon said
it was covered in mangy, dirty, dark brown
fur and resembled an ape with poor posture,
as its shoulders slumped. It had long arms
that swung back and forth as it took massive
strides. He said its speed was remarkable,
noting that a “relay runner would have
trouble keeping up with [it].”

On a chilly, moonlit morning in August
1998, two men were driving on North Bush
Road near Caroga Lake in Fulton County at
about 2:00 a.m., when they pulled their truck
to the roadside to urinate. “Chris” returned
to the vehicle before his companion, and
when he flicked on the high beams, he saw
a huge figure standing only 20 feet away. It
was seven to eight feet tall—part human,
part animal—and had a flat face and arms
that swung in an exaggerated motion.
Covered in long, brown hair, Chris said, “It
stood perfectly still for a minute and then
grunted at us. Then it turned and walked
away. It didn’t move like a man. It kind of
swaggered back and forth, like it lunged
each leg forward when it walked” (Bigfoot
Research Organization 2002).

Since the 1950s we are confronted almost
exclusively with reports of a hulking, haircovered
creature, typically standing about
seven feet tall. Even though it is occasionally
described as ape-like, absent is the beard,
occasional aggression, and chasing after
humans. It is less human and more beast.
While a few modern-day witnesses have
reacted fearfully, most view the “monster”
as peaceful, even harmless. Since the 1970s,
there have been several extremely strange
reports. Bigfoot has been seen near UFOs
and gliding across roads or rough fields in
a quasi-supernatural fashion, while in other
parts of the country, Bigfoot has been
described as transparent or disappearing in
a flash of light. This increase in Bigfoot’s
powers coincided with a spate of books and
TV documentaries on the topic beginning
in the early 1970s, which also appear to
have contributed to a more uniform image
of the monster. This version of Bigfoot
as a possibly paranormal or extraterrestrial
creature, however, elevates it to supernatural
status. Modern-day Bigfoot, in fact, is
essentially an overgrown fairy in a more
acceptable guise.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century,
the stubborn persistence of Bigfoot
sightings and beliefs are anti-scientific
symbols in an increasingly secular age. According to Ernestine McHugh, a cultural
anthropologist from Rochester: “A lot of
people are disenchanted with everyday life,
and they long for something that seems
magical. We’ve even domesticated Halloween
as a day for children. So for many people,
Bigfoot is one of the few avenues left to
the uncanny” (Pitcher 2001). Peter Dendle
concurs: “To be on to something that even
the professors of Harvard do not know
about . . . can be very empowering in an age
of routine deference to higher bodies of
institutional knowledge.” He postulates that
the contemporary search for Bigfoot may
represent a “quest for magic and wonder
in a world many perceive as having lost its
mystique” (Dendle 2006, 200). It is clear from
the web sites of the dozens of Bigfoot groups
that are now mushrooming across the United
States that many Sasquatch hunters view this
rare creature as a poster child for the dangers
of scientific “progress,” which is widely
viewed as threatening the planet with the
consequences of the Industrial Revolution.
Indeed, a real estate dealer in Florida recently
claimed to channel the telepathic thoughts of
a Bigfoot. Its message: concern over global
warming and unhappiness with the Iraq war.

Whether real or imaginary, the study of wild
men and big hairy monsters is a legitimate
and fascinating part of our social and cultural
history. Reports of such creatures behave
as if they are themselves flesh-and-blood
organisms: the legends grow and evolve
over time, producing an ever-changing
species. North American reports of manlike
monsters, Sasquatch, and Bigfoot are
a form of living folklore stoked by the
mass media, misperceptions, hoaxes, and
tall tales. Their study can shed light on
the changing conditions of life in New
York State.

Robert E. Bartholomew is a sympathetic
skeptic on the subject of Bigfoot and the
coauthor of Bigfoot Encounters in New
York and New England: Documented
Evidence, Stranger than Fiction (Hancock
House, 2008). He holds a Ph.D. in
sociology from James Cook University in
Queensland, Australia.

Brian Regal is an assistant professor in
the Department of History at Kean University
in Union, New Jersey. His most recent
article is “Entering Dubious Realms:
Grover Krantz, Science, and Sasquatch,”
which appeared in the January 2009 issue
of the journal Annals of Science.

Since the 1950s we are confronted almost
exclusively with reports of a hulking, haircovered
creature, typically standing about
seven feet tall. Even though it is occasionally
described as ape-like, absent is the beard,
occasional aggression, and chasing after
humans. It is less human and more beast.

References

Bigfoot Research Organization. 2002. Report
#4286, submitted by “Chris” on May 10.
Follow-up interview by an unnamed BFRO
investigator.

Dendle, Peter. 2006. Cryptozoology in the
Medieval and Modern Worlds. Folklore
117:190–206.

Dorchester Aurora (Maryland). August 27, 1838.

Evening Gazette. July 10, 1869. A Wild Man:
A Hideous Monster Roaming about the
Neighborhood of Woodhill and Troupsville,
N.Y.

New York Daily Herald. July 31, 1895. He, She,
or It—Beast or Human: Wild Thing Loose
in Delaware County and Scaring the Natives
Half Silly.

New York Herald. February 7, 1909. Shrieking
Apparition Rouses Long Island: Wild,
Weird Cries Disturb the Thickets in the
Neighborhood of Quogue, and Armed Men,
All in Vain, Seek the Lair of the Mysterious
Thing. Section 2:7.

New York Herald Tribune. September 4, 1934.
Man, Beast, or Demon? It’s Loose in
Amityville: Mysterious Ape-like Marauder
Raids Garage, Town on Guard.

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